Aged care law delay puts older Australians safety at risk

After months of delay, pressure is mounting on the Albanese government to strike a bipartisan deal on aged-care reform.

Aged care reform legislation is now urgent, advocates for older Australians warn.

The months-long political delay in aged care reform is denying older people the right to high quality and safe care that was promised to them after the royal commission more than three years ago, advocates warn.

Organisations representing older Australians are pressing the government to introduce a new aged care bill into federal parliament by next week at the latest, otherwise the legislation may not be passed this year.

That would put the rights of older people to safe and quality care at continued risk, the groups including Council on the Ageing, Older Persons Advocacy Network, National Seniors and Dementia Australia say.

They say the new bill needs time for proper parliamentary and public scrutiny, and the two major parties should agree to the legislation as soon as possible.

“It’s been more than three years since the royal commission into aged care heard countless harrowing stories of abuse and neglect in aged care, yet older people are still waiting for a new rights-based aged care act to be introduced,” COTA Australia chief executive officer Patricia Sparrow said.

COTA Australia chief executive Patricia Sparrow.

Older Persons Advocacy Network chief executive Craig Gear.

“Both parties know that the reform we need requires the underpinning of a new (act), yet for some reason we are still waiting for (it) to be introduced and debated.”

Older Persons Advocacy Network chief executive officer Craig Gear said the new act needed to commit to greater Support at Home for older Australians.

“Without the Act passed we don’t have enhanced quality standards, we don’t have the promised increase in protections for older people, and honestly, we don’t have viable and sustainable aged care providers,” Mr Gear said.

“This needs to be above politics. Older Australians, and their voting families will hold both parties responsible if we don’t see action to introduce the aged care act and improve the system quickly.”

The Albanese government has been attempting to find bipartisan agreement on legislative reforms to deliver on recommendations from both the royal commission and its more recent Aged Care Taskforce, but the process has now been delayed for months.

Sticking points include whether the means-tested cap on the lifetime contributions older Australians make to their care should be substantially increased or removed altogether, and increased penalties, including jail time for directors and office holders of care providers for breaches of legislation.

Aged care providers say more nursing homes are at risk of going broke amid the delay, and investment in new stock to meet growing demand has virtually ground to a halt.

“Our population is ageing and we are going to need hundreds of thousands of new beds in the coming decades,” Aged and Community Care Providers Association chief executive officer Tom Symondson said.

“However, the parlous ­financial state of the sector has meant banks have been reluctant to lend. We’re building a fraction of the capacity we are going to need.”

Acting Inspector-General of Aged Care Ian Yates has urged the government to “be bold” in its legislative reforms and recast taxpayer-funded support for older Australians in their own homes and in nursing homes into a universal entitlement, similar to Medicare.